One of the most important issues facing the O&NR field is the curation, annotation, management and dissemination of the data that the prodigious pace of research in this field has generated. The quality of the tools and resources that have been placed at the disposal of researchers in the field, and the efficiency with which they have been used, have not yet been matched by the design and and execution of a coherent resource within which the data can be efficiently managed and evaluated. In order to sustain the pace of research in the field, we propose the implementation of a Functional Atlas for ONRs within which bioinformatic and research efforts can be pursued in a synergistic, multidisciplinary approach, on a common intellectual and technological platform. The primary directive of this Atlas is to gather and organize information, quantitative and qualitative, existing and new, relating to a number of key aspects of ONR biology. Commensurate with this directive, the goals of the Atlas can be distilled into two broad aims: (i) to execute research strategies designed to rapidly and efficiently elucidate those facets of ONR biology we deem most critical to its understanding; and (ii) to facilitate the generation of hypotheses, design of experiments and communication of results by scientists active in this field. Our initiative will provide a valuable service to the ONR community and the wider NR field by developing a web-accessible bioinformatics resource, in which current and emerging information on ONRs will be organized into more accessible and "user-mineable" forms. Should the formula we propose meet with the success we envisage, it could conceivably be applied to promote research in the field of NRs in its entirety.